“What should I charge?”: Why Facebook isn’t the place to ask for pricing advice.

“Hey! What should I charge for my services?”“Do my prices seem fair to you?”
“What should my prices be for something like this?”

Every day, this question (or some version of it) haunts me. It shows up in my message inbox at least four times a week. I see it in Facebook groups daily.

Today, I’m writing this to tell you why Facebook, industry forums, and other public venues are not the place to ask for crucial business advice. If you’re seeing this because I’ve posted it in response to your own question, please read this carefully. It’s important and may save your business from ruin.

“Why shouldn’t I seek pricing advice on Facebook?”

1.) Because the people you’re asking do not know your business. When you ask someone on Facebook for pricing advice, you are asking someone who doesn’t have the information they need to form a meaningful response.

As a salon management consultant, my area of specialty is financial structuring (balancing expenses and compensation to determine service pricing that will ensure a salon’s longevity). The information I require to perform those calculations is as follows:

the cost of any benefit programs the owner wishes to implement (health insurance, PTO, etc.)

the services the salon offers

the time required to complete each service

performance metrics indicating what the top selling services are in that particular salon

performance metrics for at least one year, detailing salon traffic and sales

the CPS for each service

Additionally, I have to perform a local market analysis. That means evaluating the town/city’s local economy, the salon’s competition, the salon’s location, and any other local factors that may impact the salon’s perceived value or performance.

Once that’s done, I also have to evaluate the salon itself. I have to know what it looks like on the inside, whether the employees dress and behave professionally, what their level of experience is, what the quality of their work is, what products they’re using, what their clients are saying, whether their branding is an accurate reflection of their business…

Seriously, it’s a lot.

With all of that information, I can begin to formulate a compensation structure and set pricing to cover all of those expenses. How can you expect a random person on the internet who lacks that information to provide you with meaningful advice?

2.) Because the people you’re asking are strangers. Next to your compensation system, your pricing decisions are the most critical you will make for your business. And you are willing to entrust them to a complete stranger or–even worse somehow–an entire group of complete strangers?

What are their qualifications? What is their level of experience? Do they even own a salon? If so, how is it performing?

Would you trust this person to manage your business?

If you wouldn’t dream of handing over your salon to a stranger, why the hell would you trust them with literally the most important decisions you’ll ever have to make for your salon? You have made a tremendous investment in your business. Don’t be careless with it.

3.) Because the people you’re asking likely haven’t set their own prices correctly. Remember that bullet list I provided in my first point? Anyone who attempts to provide an answer for you without that information is a fool who clearly doesn’t have a clue how to set prices, or they wouldn’t have attempted answering to begin with.

This shit matters. A lot.

This isn’t like putting up a poll to determine which business card design is the cutest. Your prices aren’t up for public debate or poetic interpretation. It’s math.

4.) Because the people you’re asking may not understand the question. “How much do you charge for gel?” This is a perfect example of a question I see far too often in nail tech networking groups.

What do you consider a gel service? Gel polish or gel enhancements? What do you include with the service? What product lines are you using and how much are you using? Are you talking about a simple salon set, a fill and rebalance, or a fashion set? Are you talking about a gel manicure or a simple application? Are you including removal and repairs or not?

What, exactly, are you asking?

Stylists rarely ever make this mistake because they tend to understand that every client is varied. If you were to ask me how much I charge for a root retouch, I’d respond with about fifty questions. (How long is the hair? How dense is the hair? How long is the outgrowth? Are they looking for just a retouch, or a cut and style too? If that’s the case, I have a whole other set of questions…)

So, you rarely see this idiocy on hair forums and groups, but nail techs, for some reason, think every service and every client is the same. Sure, nail services don’t vary as much as hair services do, but they certainly aren’t all equal. My full-set process may not look anything like yours. My interpretation of the word “gel” may not match yours whatsoever.

Even our services and definitions did match up, without knowing all of the things I listed in the first point, I cannot give you a meaningful answer that you can apply to your business, and you know what? Neither can anyone else.

5.) Because it’s your responsibility as a business owner to understand your costs and how to set your prices appropriately to offset them and generate a profit.

Nobody expects you to hold an MBA or to be some kind of business mastermind, but there’s an expectation that you, as a salon owner, will accept responsibility for your business and educate yourself accordingly. Facebook and online forums aren’t the best place for that (unless you’re asking people how they calculated their service prices and comparing those responses to what you read in small business books or glean from a SCORE mentor who has actual experience in the service industry).

You can’t outsource your most important responsibility as a salon owner to random strangers on the internet.

“So how do I set my prices, then?”

The Salon Compensation and Pricing Calculator, an 8-page spreadsheet system that makes salon compensation and pricing calculation as simple as data entry. The best part? The system is enabled with protections to make it impossible to “break” the formulas!

The Salon Compensation and Pricing Guide, a 44-page instruction manual that not only explains how to use the system but also explains every formula so you’re never confused about what the numbers mean or where they came from.

A 9-page Employer Obligations Information Sheet to keep you from making very common life-destroying mistakes.

Be Worth What You Charge, an 11-page checklist and salon evaluation resource.

The Microsalon Assessment Tool: Be Worth What You Charge, an 11-page checklist and salon evaluation resource

The Microsalon Owner’s Website Design Guide, a practical 2-page reference detailing each page your site should have and what each page should contain.

Employer Obligations for Microsalon Owners, a 9-page document that covers the basics of employment law for solo entrepreneurs. (If you plan to hire an assistant or receptionist at some point, you’re going to need to read this document.)

How do you feel about soliciting critical business advice on Facebook? Have you ever done it? Did you consider the feedback you received to be valuable and useful, or not so much? Let us know in the comments!

Beauty industry survivalist, salon crisis interventionist, tactical verb-weapon specialist, and the leader of at least a hundred workplace revolutions, Tina Alberino is known as much for her extensive knowledge as for her sarcastic wit and mercilessly straightforward style. She’s the author of the book The Beauty Industry Survival Guide and the blog This Ugly Beauty Business. When she’s not writing, educating, or consulting, she can be found overthinking everything, identifying problems people didn’t know existed, and stubbornly working to change the things she cannot accept.

7 COMMENTS

Tina, this is a really informative and educational post. Thank you for this!
Your last question – how do you feel about soliciting critical business advice on Facebook – your great advice answers this question perfectly. I have my business for 18 years, yes I stumble in some areas and really whip it in others – but we all need a guideline in different areas. Sometimes a new business needs a benchmark to base their new treatment prices against – other times they just need to compare the average going rate. Overall – our demographics are always different, but it’s great to find a community of thinkers and doers who have excellent advice. Hats off to you for your brilliant articles

Thanks! I really think the best advice to ask for online is employee management. For example, “An employee I recently hired has been a great fit for our salon, but she shows up late a few times a week. I don’t want to lose her. Her mornings are crazy because she has three kids. How would you handle this?” That kind of stuff is really where Facebook and other business forums provide extremely applicable, useful advice from a broad range of people–both professionals and salon owners. So, those groups really do have their benefits when you’re looking for more general assistance with universal people management issues.

Great article, Tina! I have to say I am guilty of asking other nail techs about pricing of nail art. Nail art is something new for me and I didn’t have a clue! Totally understand where you are coming from and it makes perfect sense. I have also thought it would be what the market would bare in the area the salon is located. Thank you for the great read!

This is an awesome post. Seen VERY often on social media sites. I have personally posted in a discussion group about service timing. My concern being “Where in the world did people come up with services being done in less than an hour?” Especially enhancement services! The receptionists are trained improperly in some establishments where they think the fastest tech is the best tech or if you’re slower than you don’t do as great a job. It was great to connect with other licensed veteran nail professionals to talk and agree that this nail service timing is crap and to be proud of the quality of nails we produce and our pricing. Like the memes say…if you expect a set of nails in less than an hour you’re with the wrong nail tech.

I’ll be posting those both around the 6th. Verizon has insisted that no matter how many tantrums I throw and how many times I threaten to burn their offices down in the dead of night, they will absolutely not be able to hook up my internet at our new property until then.
…it’s been a really loooong week.